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From
modest beginnings as the local mafia of Calabria, at the toe of
the Italian boot, the 'Ndrangheta has spread far and wide.

It has
penetrated Italy's financial and industrial heartlands, Lombardy
and Piedmont, more than any other organised-crime group.

It has a
dominant position in the transatlantic cocaine trade, building on
alliances with Colombian and then Mexican mobsters. One study put
its turnover in 2013 at over EUR 50 billion ($69 billion).

But who controls the 'Ndrangheta? The question is central to one
of Italy's longest-running mafia trials, which is expected to end
shortly after almost three years. The trial arose from an
investigation code-named "Operation Goal" that led in 2010 to
more than 40 arrests. Among the accused are members of the most
notorious families in Reggio di Calabria. One, Pasquale Condello,
is known as Il supremo.

The prosecutor, Giuseppe Lombardo, argues that neither Mr
Condello nor any other known or alleged mobster is truly supreme;
they take their cues from an "invisible" 'Ndrangheta from the
outwardly respectable middle class. In February Mr Lombardo
altered the charges to reflect this, inviting the judges to
express their view of his case in their written judgment.

The earliest hint of a hidden 'Ndrangheta emerged in 2007, during
an investigation overseen by Mr Lombardo into how the group tried
to profit from the construction of a new motorway. Eavesdropping
on a trade unionist, Sebastiano Altomonte, police heard him
describe his contacts with 'Ndrangheta leaders and explain to his
wife that they were split between "the visible and the invisible,
which was born a couple of years ago". He was among the
"invisibles", he said. It was previously believed that a
co-ordinating body, the Provincia, was the 'Ndrangheta's high
command; it also has an assembly called the Crimine ("Crime"),
believed to meet once a year during the pilgrimage to a sanctuary
in the Aspromonte uplands.

As the judges who convicted Mr Altomonte and others noted, his
remarks open up "an entirely new scenario" in which there exists
a separate (and perhaps higher) level of 'Ndrangheta leadership
previously unknown to investigators. The police began a
painstaking process of revisiting old cases and reinterrogating
state witnesses (known as pentiti). Some pentiti acknowledged the
existence of a hidden level; others did not. But, says Mr
Lombardo, that was to be expected: according to Mr Altomonte,
even some bosses are unaware of the 'Ndrangheta's invisible arm.

Not all the evidence in support of his view has been presented in
court; what has been is tenuous yet intriguing. One pentito
described a Fellini-esque visit with a top 'Ndrangheta man to an
office like a notary's in the posh Rome district of Parioli. He
spoke of a "kind of confessional" in the corridor where he had to
wait and a plaque bearing odd letters matching one in the home of
his clan's boss.

Mr Lombardo believes members of the "invisible 'Ndrangheta" are
linked to the laundering of its prodigious income. But it remains
unclear whether they are the mobsters' agents or, as he believes,
their masters. He argues that in recent years the police in
Calabria have had excellent results against the 'Ndrangheta. "But
the organisation does not get any weaker. So we know that we are
hitting it at a level below that which really counts."